Featured

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A United Nations study of the greenhouse gas reduction targets announced by the 191 signatories to the Paris Convention has come up with an alarming result. If countries follow through on their stated plans, greenhouse gas emissions will actually rise. In 2025, they will be 15.8% higher than in 2010 […]

Featured

In Turning Point for US Media, Time Recognizes Palestinians Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd as among 100 “Most Influential”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In what may be a turning point for American media, Time magazine has chosen twin Palestinian activists from the endangered East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Mohammed and Muna el-Kurd, as among the 100 most influential people in 2021. "Through online posts and media appearances, sibling activists Mohammed (@m7mdkurd) and Muna […]

Afghanistan

China slams US Sanctions on Taliban, Eyes investments in Afghan Minerals

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Laura Zhou at the South China Morning Post reports that Zhao Lijian, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, on Wednesday called on the United States not to sanction the Taliban in Afghanistan and to cease sequestering $9.5 billion in Afghanistan government funds that Washington is withholding from the Taliban. Zhao […]

China

“We are on the way to a right-wing coup:” Milley secured Nuclear Codes, Allayed China fears of Trump Strike

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As a historian, I am fascinated by the practical appeals to history that appear throughout the story of Gen. Mark A. Milley’s struggles with Trump in the last months of the latter’s presidency. Milley believes that Jan. 6 was just an initial skirmish, sort of like the failed 1905 revolution […]

Afghanistan

As Banks threaten to Collapse and Aid Dwindles, 93% of Afghans already don’t get Sufficient Food

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – UN World Food Program surveys in August and September, Al Jazeera reports, found that 93 percent of Afghans already are not getting sufficient food, for the most part because they lack the cash to purchase it. Things are about to get worse, as Afghanistan under the Taliban is cut off […]

al-Qaeda

No, Saudi Arabia wasn’t behind the 9/11 Attacks; That is a conspiracy Theory

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The FBI released documents from its investigation of ties of personnel at the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., to al-Qaeda. The Saudi government was not behind the September 11 attacks, and these documents don’t indicate that it was. The Saudis are heavily invested in the U.S. stock market, and it […]

Featured

Top 7 Ways al-Qaeda’s Terrorism Violated the Precepts of the Holy Qur’an

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One of the great tragedies of the early twenty-first century is that the great civilization of Islam, over 1400 years old and with tremendous achievements should have had its escutcheon besmirched with the terrorism of a small fringe of extremists such as Usama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. It is the […]

Bush

The Accumulated Evil of the Whole: That time Bush and Co. made the September 11 Attacks a Pretext for War on Iraq

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Kyle Swenson at the Washington Post reported in 2018 that Floridian Ishnar Lopez-Ramos was in love, but her intended only had eyes for another woman. So Ms. Lopez-Ramos enlisted two 22-year-old accomplices to target the other woman, who worked at the Ross Dress for Less at a shopping Center near […]

al-Qaeda

Think Again: 9/11

Juan Cole

“Think Again: 9/11,” by Juan Cole. Published in Foreign Policy No. 156 (Sep. – Oct., 2006), pp. 26-28, 30, 32. Copyright Foreign Policy, all rights reserved. Not for further reprint. These responses were my assessment of 9/11 and the Bush Forever Wars five years after the attacks. It is perhaps worth revisiting them now, 20 […]